Broadband in Barra

I received the following in my email, which I have copied in full, removing only the offensive title!
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The Connected Communities Initiative is in the Scotsman. Go to this link and let them know what you think of the ConCom experience and tell others to do likewise!

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/technology?articleid=4190561

Mutiny on the Broadband

Earth tremors were felt across Barra last week, as Northbay residents jaws dropped in anger and disbelief at discovering HIE’s decision not to pursue the procurement process to upgrade the phone exchange. Many people had to read the letter twice as HIE proposed the best solution for providing broadband to us was to accept the Connected Communities Initiative because we’d get that service sooner than the exchange upgrade we all requested.

The fact that we presented them with a petition signed by over 90% of the households stating our willingness to wait for the procurement process to occur doesn’t seem to have registered with them. I will reiterate that fact again, we would all rather wait a bit longer and get the broadband service we want than have the one we don’t want forced upon us sooner. HIE’s sudden desire to give us an Internet service quickly now is at odds with their previous stance because at the public meeting they admitted that we would have ADSL broadband now if they had listened to our initial requests last year.

There is no valid argument against upgrading the phone exchange, there is though an unwillingness to listen to us and accept that Connected Communities is unsuited and unwanted here. It is unbelievably arrogant of HIE to ask our co-operation to help them provide a service we don’t want when they are totally unwilling to co-operate with us to provide the service we do. I would also like to ask how they could determine that the best solution for providing broadband to us was a wireless service, when they never considered the ADSL option and didn’t survey Barra until three years after the initiative began? The invasion of Iraq had better planning.

I would also like to query HIE’s optimistic timescale to provide this service nobody wants by late summer 2008. In 2003 Connected Communities predicted that “significant swathes” of Lewis and Harris would be connected by December that year but as late as last summer people in Harris were “growing impatient” with the lack of coverage there. An HIE document from 28/11/07 recognised “challenges emerging in securing electricity supplies…likely to delay final commissioning of majority of completed masts into 2008/09”….and apparently there isn’t sufficient power to the mast in Bruernish at the moment to supply Connected Communities…. Also how long would the households in blind spots here have to wait before a service was provided for them? They would get a quicker service by going through the procurement process. I would also like to remind HIE of their review in 2004 that aspired to provide “100% coverage” because they seem to have forgotten this.

I would also like to disagree with HIE’s assertion that there is no significant difference between Connected Communities prices and what is available through ADSL. Maybe someone on an HIE wage may not think this difference is “significant” but the people here do and we are not willing to pay extra for a service we don’t actually want. We already pay more for fuel and food etc. due to our location, and we are not willing to pay more for broadband due to HIE’s intransigence. Also I cannot see how Connected Communities can possibly change its price structure to become more competitive as their wholesale prices to Hebrides.Net are more expensive than the retail prices of many ISP’s. More subsidies anyone?

I’d also like to dispute HIE’s conclusion that there is no discernable difference between the performance of wireless and ADSL broadband because I’ve never heard a complaint from a landline user here because of the wind, the rain, or the tide being in. Hebrides.Net must be the only ISP in the world that gives a tide timetable with its router.

I’d also like to dispel the notion that only “some” Northbay residents would be disappointed by this decision because consistently over 90% of the residents here have been campaigning for the exchange to be upgraded. And we are not “disappointed” Mr Cumming, we are furious. I don’t think you could get a better example of public opinion than on this issue. We have sent upwards of 1,000 letters now and had a unanimous vote at the public meeting with HIE but yet nobody is listening to us. It seems to me that our opinion only counts once every four or five years when someone wants us to put an “X” by their name. Please remember this issue next election time. It does not say much for the democratic process when a whole community is being ignored and dictated to by a quango of unelected suits more concerned with protecting the reputation of their project than giving us the best service available. We are not accepting an inferior service to save anyone’s blushes. Your move HIE, because we aren’t budging.